If you're trying to be of good cheer and nice and warm and sunny and all that simply to prove to people that you're not the other way, then all you've done is grant their premise, and you're forever on the defensive. And I'll tell you this, nobody ever persuades anybody else when they come at it from a defensive posture.

Rush is surely dead on. Who doesn't respect a ?former oxycontin addict who sits in a booth and bloviates for a living? Look at what Rush has accomplished: an improved golf game and a sweetly furnished apartment in Manhattan. He's approaching the stature Trump!

I understand the wife's hesitation. The campaigning is brutal, it's the end of anonymity, no one is ever satisfied after you win,there are nuts and terrorists after you. Maybe we should limit it to the single, unmarried and childless.

Phil 3:14: Who doesn't respect a ?former oxycontin addict who sits in a booth and bloviates for a living? Look at what Rush has accomplished: an improved golf game and a sweetly furnished apartment in Manhattan. He's approaching the stature Trump!

Who doesn't respect a ?former cocaine user who stands at a podium and bloviates for a living? Look at what Obama has accomplished: an improved golf game and a sweetly furnished pad in Washington DC. He's approaching the stature Trump!

It's funny the way when you think shit up you can't feel which part of your brain did it. The head is oddly insensitive. When my foot hurts, I can usually pin point which part, even almost down to which toe has the pain... or at least get it down to it's either the roast-beef toe or the had-none toe. With the head... I have no idea. This bullshit just pops up, seemingly all over.

"If you leave your husband to marry someone else, then come back to your husband, it's not too cool to put the clamp down on his dreams for a Presidential run, no?"

Did she clamp down on his dreams or some other part?

Maybe he clamped down on something of hers. He could have said he wasn't running without putting it on her. That's a pussy move. And don't tell me "family" doesn't equal "wife." He said the woman made me do it... man's oldest lame excuse.

Jason;Who doesn't respect a ?former cocaine user who stands at a podium and bloviates for a living? Look at what Obama has accomplished: an improved golf game and a sweetly furnished pad in Washington DC. He's approaching the stature Trump!

We need a heartier stock. No Paula Deens from the GOP elite can make what we need.

Here's what I don't get:

For the party that has a deep skepticism of Washington and Big Government and puts far more faith in the everyday guy/gal and small business getting the job done, why are we constantly searching for the Great Man to lead us

You'd think we'd be more interested in the steady, unassuming competent guy who has demonstrated an ability to shrink government, balance budgets and give power back to the people.

Rush is not a politician, he is a talk radio guy..the only thing he has to run is his mouth so it easy for him to sit back and lecture other people.

I pretty much stopped listening to Rush when I heard him tell a dumb lie about Daniels and Arne Duncan the Secretary of Education. Rush said that Daniels was all supportive of Duncan and wanted us all to get behind Obama..when in truth Duncan and Daniels agreed on one thing, merit pay for teachers..they did not agree on vouchers and charter schools, both of which Daniels supported. Rush either did not have his facts straight or he was being deliberately dishonest. Neither of which inspires confidence.

The interesting thing here is that the man who has been vilified for not being socially conservative enough made his decision on the grounds that family comes first. There is an irony there.

There is another irony of course, many of the same people who got riled because Daniels talked about a VAT tax are totally on board with Cain's 23% national sales tax and prebates.

Daniels is more conservative than Palin. He is more fiscally conservative than Herman Cain.

It is just amazing how easy it is to lead people around. A few pundits and some talk radio guys starting yammering about RINOs and people just go along with them without even really knowing what they are talking about.

And edutcher, considering the fact that we are looking at fiscal ruin, what issues are bigger than the fiscal issues? And by the way, Daniels does not even support civil unions, much less gay marriage..he does not support abortion..the fact that he thought the mountain of debt we are accumulating is the most important issue we face does not mean he is not willing to debate big issues.

Maybe the Republicans can nominate Obama. He cut taxes, increased spending, increased the deficits, entered another war, added another entitlement, and killed Bin Laden. He's a more successful version of W.

He's put that in the past, maybe we should, too. Stand by your [wo]man and all.

I'm all for putting in the past, but I'm assuming that the reason she doesn't want him to run is that people will bring up this past issue. If that's the case, then she did something wrong, and she doesn't want him to run because that will set people talking about this past wrong thing.

I don't think he's a wuss for not running if she doesn't want him to, even if she's wrong in making that call. I think it's unethical to run for President without the consent of one's spouse.

Is Limbaugh a social conservative? I don't have the chance to listen to him because he's on during the day and I work during the day in the private sector. Who does Limbaugh support as the Republican nominee?

If Daniels is so Conservative, what explains his tenure as Dubya's OMB?

This is something he would have to explain if he faced Little Zero.

Many of the issues surrounding that fiscal crisis are ones where he was castigated as not wanting to make a fight (a la Kasich and Walker) with groups such as unions and Planned Parenthood.

Sounds a little like George McClellan.

(You can also make the case that he intends to make a name for himself beating the deficit drum at the State level where it's mandatory)

And his little plaint about leaving the social issues out of the discussion concedes justification of 80 - 90% of the spending the Demos do.

Phil 3:14 said...

Here's what I don't get:

For the party that has a deep skepticism of Washington and Big Government and puts far more faith in the everyday guy/gal and small business getting the job done, why are we constantly searching for the Great Man to lead us

You'd think we'd be more interested in the steady, unassuming competent guy who has demonstrated an ability to shrink government, balance budgets and give power back to the people.

Instead we crave the conservative alternative to The One

Pawlenty's in the race and he's even renounced his support for cap-and-trade if that makes Phil happy.

Conservatives aren't looking for another Zero.

They are looking for somebody who is going to take the fight to Little Zero.

And you do realize that states with the highest percentage of social conservatives have the highest per capita recipients of welfare (Medicaid, SCHIP, TANF, SNAP, WIC, school lunch program). Alaska and Wyoming are the biggest recipients. Who will be the one to tell all these folks to get off the dole? I would definitely support that person when he or she comes forward. Leave the welfare to private charity.

I don't blame him. Running for President is like driving through a carwash made of razor blades. Still, it's too bad, and it means that the GOP primary instantly narrows to one viable candidate: Pawlenty. Romney has money but it's hard to see him uniting the party. Huntsman and Palin , see above without the money. Cain? I thought we had all agreed four years ago that political novices aren't qualified to run for President, even if they are black. I like Gingrich, but I just can't imagine him getting elected; that foot-in-mouth disease is too advanced to turn back now. So it really does look like it comes down to Pawlenty.

And you do realize that states with the highest percentage of social conservatives have the highest per capita recipients of welfare (Medicaid, SCHIP, TANF, SNAP, WIC, school lunch program). Alaska and Wyoming are the biggest recipients

I'm waiting to see who declares and what their positions are.

As I've said, I like what I've seen in Herman Cain and, when she has more time in grade, I'd like to see Miss Sarah run, although this is not the year.

Want to see where Christie is on more than State fiscal issues, although he, also, needs more time in grade. I like a lot of what Michelle Bachmann has to say, but she needs more than 2 terms in the House.

The fact that Rick Perry might jump in interests me, as well, but, again, what is his platform.

As to Al and WY, both states have small populations, so it doesn't take many people to skew the statistic. And there is a Depression on.

The people on welfare do not necessarily translate to the social conservatives.

And Sarah raised taxes in Alaska...the truth is there are people out there who will not support anyone that they think Rush and Hannity don't want them to support. They take their cues from other people because they don't know how to make their own determination...hence Cain will get a pass for supporting a 23% sales tax and Daniels will get the ax for talking about a VAT...

When the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, Bush had been president for 6 years and the budget deficit was $167 billion, we run that much in a month.

We would have to make huge cuts in spending, just to get back to where we were when Daniels was with the Bush administration.

And if you are going to ignore the fact that he balanced the budget here in Indiana and created a surplus and cut spending...then why make an issue of his tenure with Bush years before that?

Last I looked, states were legally bound to balance their budgets.

And, OK, we would have to make huge spending cuts. I have no problem with that - let's start with ZeroCare, repealing Dodd-Frank, and giving the rest of the Stimulus money back. And I include Defense (in the right places, you'd probably have a better Defense).

And by the way edutcher, not only did Daniels not support cap and trade, he called it imperialism

Indiana had a deficit when Daniels took over and the state pension plans were a mess. Daniels changed all that. He did exactly what he said he would do. He took away collective bargaining from state employees, he gave other state employees the choice of going to Health Savings Accounts are picking up more of their own costs.

And he got very little credit for that from the people who are constantly complaining that they care about such things.

You know what per capita means, right. Perry is the only Repub governor who even raised the issue of having his state pull out of Medicaid. Certainly any state with a Republican governor and Republican legislature could do it. But none have done so, not even Alaska when Palin was governor.

As for Bachmann, I eagerly await her introducing a bill to repeal the alphabet soup of federal welfare entitlements. Surprisingly, she hasn't even introduced a bill repealing Medicare Part D. That's a very recent entitlement, pushed through with Republican support no less.

Cain is definitely intriguing. But as of now, his website doesn't advocate repealing the welfare entitlements.

The Republicans need a candidate who at least wants to get the federal government back to the size it was on the morning of Jan 20, 2001. Maybe Cain will be that guy.

I think the reason some people did not like Daniels was that they thought he was too nice, too mild mannered. They want loud, in your face, obnoxious...I have heard it time and again..take the fight to Obama etc...but in truth what we need is someone who knows what the hell they are doing. And Daniels has shown a real capacity for navigating complicated political terrain and accomplishing his goals..but he was not in your face about it and there are some for whom in your face is more important than competent.

In 2007 and 2008, we ridiculed Barack Obama's Presidential aspirations, pointing out (quite correctly) that the man was utterly inexperienced. We said that a handful of years in State and US Senates counted for nothing, and that his skin color bought us nothing. We were right, and the last few years have proved it. So why is it that some people are ready to embrace a guy with even less experience than Obama? He's never held office, he's got no relevant experience--indeed, so far as I can tell, the only experience he has is running a regional restaurant chain. If we apply the same standards to this race as we did to Obama, we will certainly reject Cain, and will probably reject most of the other vanity candidates like Santorum too.

Cain not only wants to put a 23% sales tax on everything, he wants to give poor people "prebates" to compensate for the increased costs in buying just about everything. That means a new federal program.

It will not fly.

And if you want to take the drug benefit away from older people on medicare, then the least conservatives can do is open the markets to cheap drug imports so that people can have an option when it comes to buying meds. The truth is most Americans support these programs and while they need reform, Americans will never vote for a candidate that calls for their abolition. It won't happen.

You know what per capita means, right. Perry is the only Repub governor who even raised the issue of having his state pull out of Medicaid. Certainly any state with a Republican governor and Republican legislature could do it. But none have done so, not even Alaska when Palin was governor.

As for Bachmann, I eagerly await her introducing a bill to repeal the alphabet soup of federal welfare entitlements. Surprisingly, she hasn't even introduced a bill repealing Medicare Part D. That's a very recent entitlement, pushed through with Republican support no less.

Cain is definitely intriguing. But as of now, his website doesn't advocate repealing the welfare entitlements.

The Republicans need a candidate who at least wants to get the federal government back to the size it was on the morning of Jan 20, 2001. Maybe Cain will be that guy

Cute.

All this is so much sophistry. Pure Uncle Saul.

Miss Sarah, as your friends up there ensured, only had 2 years in office, so we can't know what she might have done.

Same with Michelle Bachmann - she has supported Ryan's initiative - going after the biggest welfare entitlement of all, so she's actually doing something the Lefties don't like. If she runs, we can all critique her positions.

Thanks for the info on the 23 percent VAT. It looks like Cain is willing to trade that VAT for an elimination of individual and corporate federal income taxes. The prebare idea, though, is welfare.

You're probably right about the prescription drug welfare entitlement. Not much support for it, even among the Tea Party. Perhaps Tea Partiers should trade in their tri-corne hats for NY Giants Super Bowl 42 t-shirts. They seem to want to roll the federal government back to only February 10, 2008.

And if you want to take the drug benefit away from older people on medicare, then the least conservatives can do is open the markets to cheap drug imports so that people can have an option when it comes to buying meds.[...]

You do realize that drugs in, say, Canada, are cheaper than they are over here because the Canadian government bullies the drug companies into giving them discounts? Right?

Miss Sarah didn't even cut back on the considerable number of Alaska state employees during her 30 months in office. What was she waiting for?

I didn't vote for Obama and won't vote for him again. And though Obamacare is a bad idea, it at least contains cuts to Medicare. I would have happily voted for Daniels. He fixed his state's fiscal problems and reduced the number of state employees.

I'm happy that you like Palin and Bachmann because they support slightly less entitlement spending and slightly smaller deficits than Obama. I prefer competence and fiscal conservatism.

Miss Sarah didn't even cut back on the considerable number of Alaska state employees during her 30 months in office. What was she waiting for?

I didn't vote for Obama and won't vote for him again. And though Obamacare is a bad idea, it at least contains cuts to Medicare. I would have happily voted for Daniels. He fixed his state's fiscal problems and reduced the number of state employees.

I'm happy that you like Palin and Bachmann because they support slightly less entitlement spending and slightly smaller deficits than Obama. I prefer competence and fiscal conservatism.

They appear to be solid W. conservatives

The real cuts in Medicare made by ZeroCare are those dumping medical assistance on it. ZeroCare destroys Medicare - that's the whole idea. Doctors are bailing on it as fast as they can.

Again, he is complaining about something Mrs Palin had not yet done without any knowledge of her intent. Uncle Saul rides again.

But check the emphasis. Never voted for Zero and never will again.

Cute.

Balancing the budget is fine, but, again, he is bound by law. Simply because the Demos didn't is irrelelvant.

Daniels was willing to do anything as long as he didn't have to have a confrontation. That's the issue here. The fact Lefties and RINOs are so enamored of him is because of that.

Both want a Republican who will be more interested in losing gracefully than in winning.

the big loser today is Mrs Daniels's ex-husband. His tell-all book deal just evaporated along with appearances on the View, 60 Minutes, a Barbara Wah Wah special etc. I wonder if he already had an agent.

Yeah, that's why people didn't like Truce Daniels, because he is too smart, too nice, and too much of a grown up. So now the Daniels supporters (many of whom kept trying to tell us how great and unbeatable McCain was) will stomp off in a snit and a huff because we -- who are so very beneath such greatness -- didn't appreciate him.

But fear not. Truth is, he isn't all that dissimilar to Yawnlenty or Romney. So you still have a couple of squishy lukewarm "adults" left in the race to cheer on.

Something else I thought of while I listened to certain people call Daniels a pussy for putting his family first...Palin walked away from an office she had already won and a commitment she had already made because she thought it was best for her family...and most of these people, no doubt Rush included think that was okay fine.

Oh please. Daniels is more conservative than Palin is. He is not a moderate..he just is not a raving loon either. The truth is a lot of people out there would rather have an incompetent person who gave speeches about how sucky Obama is than have someone who actually knows what the hell they are talking about. And that of course is good news for Obama.

What makes you say Daniels had no problem with deficit spending at a federal level? You could say the same thing about Ronald Reagan. Daniels was part of the Bush administration at the time of the terrorist attacks and the recession and he was not the one responsible for making all the decisions either. And even then the deficit was a fraction of what it is now.

Once he became Governor of Indiana and was in a position to make those kinds of decisions himself he cut spending and taxes and balanced the budget and created a surplus.Why not give him credit for what he did?

if you're right about Obama wanting to destroy Medicare, you are make a good case we should reelect him. Let the elderly pay out of pocket for their healthcare like they did before 1965.

And Sarah Palin is not a fiscal conservative. She governed a small, homogenous, oil rich welfare state with a huge percentage of state employed workers. Daniels has a record of fiscal competence as governor. What did Palin do as governor?

I am not stomping off or huffing or anything else. I wish Daniels had run, but I always kind of thought he would not.

Daniels is a good Govenor, a competent man who did his job. He is not charismatic and he is not given to shallow political posturing. And while people say they want good government, more often than not they vote for the flashy person with the most baleful or riveting speeches. Daniels is not into speeches and posturing. That would make it hard for him to appeal to certain people.

I just wish that tea partiers would realize that they're a subset of Republican primary voters, who are in turn a subset of all voters. Folks like RCocean make the mistake of seeing themselves as ordinary, average Americans, and flowing from that is a horribly erroneous thought process: if I like candidate X, then all we need to do is nominate candidate X, because if I, an ordinary, average American, likes them, all ordinary, average Americans will, and by definition that's a majority. They seem to think that the electorate comprises the tea party and RINO squishes, and if they could only get past the latter, victory is assured.

But it's horsehockey. They fail to appreciate that about half the country actually like Obama. Get it through your heads! People like this President, or at least, they like him better than having a Republican President. Democrats and a number of independents like him, and they will vote for him again. And it doesn't matter how stupid we think they are, how incomprehensible their thinking is to us--it doesn't matter! What matters is that they're there, there's a lot of them, and if we don't nominate a candidate who can unite the GOP and win about 60% of independents, we lose. That's a fact.

This is why phrases like "we the people" and "let's take back our country" are telling when used in modern political discourse--invariably, the person using it believes that their views are representative of America at large, no matter that it's bitterly apparent that there is no such thing. In America today, we have two groups with radically different, even antithetical views on what America is, with a third group, comprising less than twenty percent of the population, holding the balance of power and picking between the two sides as an a la carte menu. Our challenge (to augment the Buckley rule with an empirical reality) is to pick the most conservative candidate acceptable to 60% of independents.

Liking this president won't put food on the table in an economy with 9% unemployment and that won't win him many votes in 2012.

I have seen a bunch of sports managers and head coaches who were likeable but they sucked at their job and the team's fans did not complain when the owner fired them. The voters will not miss Obama after he is fired in 2012.

Obama's policies aren't particularly popular, but enough of the voters like him. His personal favorability numbers are good, even though his record is not. The Republicans need to nominate a plausible candidate to win. That person will be someone with a decent record of accomplishment who is likeable enough. That leaves Pawlenty, Huntsman, and Romney in a general election.

Republicans aren't going to win by nominating a sloganeering lightweight or someone with no experience. Independents are not going to vote for someone with fortune cookie proposals who scares the shit out of them. So you either get someone you think is a RINO because gay marriage and abortion are not their top 2 priorities of you get Obama. These are your choices. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

Simon said: So why is it that some people are ready to embrace a guy [Cain] with even less experience than Obama?

To win this election, the Republican candidate will have to win the hearts and votes of independents and soft Democrats who would otherwise vote for Obama. Those voters have already proven that experience is not a make-or-break issue for them, so I'm not making it a high priority when I contemplate candidates.

But it seems that Simon might agree with me: Our challenge is to pick the most conservative candidate acceptable to 60% of independents.

IMHO: To some extent, Cain's How's That Workin' For Ya? is a revamp of "Hope and Change". Those who responded to H&C but whose lives have not improved under Obama might also respond to Cain. Those who responded to Obama's eloquence but whose lives have not improved since he took office might be hopeful about the changed oration style of (straight shootin') Cain.

Off-topic: Recently, I've become increasingly interested in the possibilities for a Cain/Palin campaign.

He could have said he wasn't running without putting it on her. That's a pussy move. And don't tell me "family" doesn't equal "wife." He said the woman made me do it... man's oldest lame excuse.

Long time reader, occasional commenter here. This seems out of character for the person I've come to know through this blog.

Let's grant the hypothetical that the only voiced objections come from his wife. (Which is unproven, BTW.) In some famlies - I would say the healthy ones - decisions that ding the purpose the family was created for are only made together, if all the adults are in favor. Essentially, some decisions redefine the contract, which can only be done if everyone agrees.

I think national politics is one of those. Running for president, or god help them winning, will ding everybody involved. They don't need to run, or win to do what families are for (for many people) - raise kids, take care of each other, travel life's arc together because it's better that way. Indeed, running, or god help them winning may greatly diminish these goals - the kids will live in a museum, the office ages people, there are secrets and demands and pressures and temptations, etc. I think a presidential run is different in kind from smaller-scale politics, including in its impact on the family. So, to run is to ask the family to redefine its mission - and everybody gets a veto on new contract terms.

Making another example, consider a marriage that's a partnership to live together, sharing time, health and adventures and perhaps raise children. Then one partner, touched by the FSM's noodley appendage, converts to Pastafarianism & feels called to live on the streets in NYC, preaching to the masses, bathing only in beer-volcanoes. I think the other spouse gets a vote, even a veto on that one, at least in some marriages. "Dude, what about the kids?"

One profound part of many marriages is agreeing that you don't live entirely for, or as an individual any more. You don't get to choose to leave all you have and dwell in the swamp without agreement all around the table. One could argue that when called by the FSM, if you can't renegotiate, get a divorce. But, what is a marriage, and a family? I think both are the ongoing choice that this comes first, for me - this agreement, these goals, this person, this life.

I'm making a less than crisp examples & arguments here..The point is, Mr. Daniels' claim is far from necessarily bullshit. The Althouse I read most often is more precise in thinking and more generous in interpretation than simply calling "bullshit" as above, then dragging in "just like a man." Sorry, but bullshit.

does not appear to be any front runners--just runners (I think that was michael barone's phrase) for the GOP nomination at this point.

My preferred position is to have the GOP devote its resources to making sure they get a cloture proof senate and retain the house. That way Mr Obama can continue to improve his golf game as relatively powerless lame duck without screwing up the country.(athough given his thursday israel speech and his sat AIPAC speech, he appears to be a one man dipomatic wrecking crew)

RE: Daniels.I think there is a difference between -the Wife/Family being the (totally legit) reason he did not run - publicly stating/blaming it on her/them. He could have made a truthful announcement without dragging her/them into it.

RE: GOP runners & front runners.Can someone remind me where Obama stood in the polls and general public opinion at this point of his previous campaign?

AJ Lynch said..."Liking this president won't put food on the table in an economy with 9% unemployment and that won't win him many votes in 2012."

And disliking him doesn't translate into a Republican vote. Anxiety about the economy doesn't translate into a Republican vote. Wishing there was a candidate you could vote for instead of Obama doesn't translate into a Republican vote. What does is what McCullough just said: "[We] nominate a plausible candidate to win," someone "with a decent record of accomplishment who is likeable enough." It's not enough to convince the electorate that Obama sucks. We have to nominate someone that the electorate believes will be better.

And if you doubt this, let me ask you this: Did you like John McCain? I didn't. Did you support him anyway? I did. I think you did too. So why would you think 2012 is going to work differently? It won't. People will support the candidate whom they think is better, even if they think that candidate sucks. And while a lot of people in this country think Obama sucks, they may conclude that his opponent sucks more.

Yes, "opponent can't seal the deal" was referring to Kerry. Something Dems are all too familiar w/lol ie god awful nominees: McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry. Carter having barely won in 1976 after almost blowing a (33) pt. lead against an appointed pres who pardoned Nixon.

This is why it's so ironic bi-racial, African/American Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim anti-christ born in Kenya ;) finally led the Dems to the promised land.

Ann believes it is a man's responsibility to take responsibility. Mitch should have said he decided not to run because didn't want to run. My wife is the same way. She is a highly qualified professional, with a doctorate. She supervises other professionals in six different locations. In many ways she thinks like a man, yet she expects me to take final responsibility for all family decisions—because I am a man. I figured out Freud's question “What do women want?” years ago. They want the man to figure out what they want to do and then tell them to do it. Then he should take responsibility for the results. That's what women want, no responsibility.

I can understand your feelings re Daniels: You obviously know quite a bit about him and his record. But you seem woefully uninformed about the "Fair Tax", which is intended to replace the income tax. The "prebate", to make the Fair Tax progressive, can be handled in a much better way via a a card like thouse issued to WIC recipients, etc., defining the tax rate that person should pay.

The Fair Tax is indeed a radical departure from the income tax, but that in itself does not make it a bad idea. The various rates being kicked around (17%, 23%) are so far just estimates to be revenue neutral. I suggest you explore the Fair Tax with the same depth and fairness you wish the Daniels critics had done

Palin as President and and Cain as her VP will do a super job of winning the nomination and the election. A real woman and a real black man are not handicapped as another old white guy when running against the half black Obama.

traditionalguy said..."Palin as President and and Cain as her VP will do a super job of winning the nomination and the election."

And on what do you base that, other than sheer desire for it to be true? I don't accept that individual polls are reliable; question bias, sample bias, you name it, individual polls should be taken with salt. But broad trends in polling are another matter. When dozens of polls—taken by multiple outfits with different biases using different methodologies over several years—all produce the same result, the trend should be taken seriously. That's how we know, for example, that the vast majority of Americans support the pledge of allegiance: Not because American Solutions polled them last month, but because hundreds of polls over the years have produced near-identical results. And what is the broad polling trend on Sarah Palin? By wide margins, independents hate her. And in a race where we need to win a supermajority of independents, a candidate loathed by independents (and not a few Republicans, although to be clear I like her a great deal) is a non-starter.

Oh, oh, better yet: Let's pair one of the most unpopular politicians in the country with a veep who can be savaged with our own weapons, against whom every "inexperience" charge we leveled against Barack Obama will cut even deeper. By all means, let us ensure the reelection of Barack Obama; that will show the world that we're serious about advancing conservative principles!